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The NCD process

The NCD Barrel gives a good summary of what the NCD process will address in your church. NCD research shows that every church in the world will "leak" the blessings of God from the area that is least developed in that church (the lowest stave in the picture). No matter how much time, treasure or talent is poured into the church, it will continue to leak unless that lowest point is improved. In NCD, we call this lowest stave the "minimum factor”.

To identify and improve your minimum factor, these are the steps…

1. Contact your NCD National Partner to request an account on this web site, to ask any other questions you may have, and to enquire about pricing.

2. Once you have your survey web site account, you will be able to conduct your survey. This involves sending online survey invitations to your survey participants (or providing some survey participants with paper forms if preferable). for the most accurate results, you will be surveying as many people as possible (up to a maximum of 30) who…

each have some form of regular task in the church, AND

are each involved in some form of small group in the church, AND

each attend your church's worship services

3. With your participant responses received, you can then immediately produce your NCD Survey Results. Having then identified your church’s greatest strengths and celebrated them, your attention then moves to addressing your minimum factor. This can be done with the assistance of your NCD National Partner and a host of guides and tools available at that point.

4. Shortly after your initial result discussions, you will be able to start acting upon the kind of simple action plans that are most likely to bring about progress. Ideally, this begins with the key influencers in your church who are due the most affirmation for the strengths of your church as well being those who need to carry a larger responsibility for the minimum factor. Given your minimum factor is usually low because it hasn't had as much attention as other areas of church life, you can expect to start to see signs of progress quite quickly if those areas are given some consistent attention as the rest of church life continues along.

5. Once you have begun to see some clear signs of progress and you suspect there have been changes in the health and culture of your church, then repeat the survey. This will allow you to track your progress (even in areas that you didn't specifically focus on), identify if there is a new minimum factor in need of attention, as well as show you if there are any longer term cultural sticking points that are going to require a more concerted effort to transform.

All by itself the soil produces grain... Mark 4:28

After a number of survey cycles, you will be seeing clear signs of how your church is stewarding the time, treasure and talent given to it in far more fruitful ways... all of which happening without having to interrupt church life or suddenly trying to move it in a completely different direction. Instead, you will be starting to experience the Mark 4:26-28 "all by itself" growth that Jesus spoke of and has in mind for your church.

While there is no need to do any pre-study in order to take the survey and start the process, you may find tools like The All By Itself Pathway NCD introductory booklet (in paperback or immediately as an eBook) helpful to give to team members who may need to know more before committing. Beyond these tools, be sure to contact your NCD National Partner with any questions you may have or to get started.